Responding to Poetry

A quick look at BBC Bitesize will tell you what you need to know about how to respond to poetry. If you need things broken down further for you, that's what this is here for!
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One rather important thing to remember when responding to poetry is that while your opinion is important, you also need to include a critical analysis of the poem. Often times, students will do one or the other, usually with the focus on how the poem makes them feel.

You know you are going to be asked to compare two poems for your GCSE. There's no way of getting around that. By mixing your personal response and your critical analysis, you can be sure to hit your AOs.

But first, what is your personal response? 
Your personal response goes beyond "I like this poem. It is a good poem." While it's fine and dandy that you like this poem, this doesn't really say anything of substance. I like cats. That means nothing to you, right? But if I said, "I like cats because they have the cutest little paws. You can never tell what they're thinking or if they are planning your murder. Plus, you can give cat's catnip and watch them go psycho for a while." In your mind, you're either going "Miss is right! Cats are the cutest!" or "Miss has no idea what she's talking about. Dogs are the best." Either way, you've formed an opinion off of what I said. You're either agreeing with my personal response or disagreeing to it.
Let's look at an example from BBC Bitesize.

Dusting the Phone by Jackie Kay

I am spending my time imagining the worst that could happen.
I know this is not a good idea, that being in love, I could be
spending my time going over the best thing that has been happening. 

Sample response:
We can see that the speaker is 'in love' and she imagines 'the worst that could happen'. This is striking because we imagine being in love as being something that makes people happy. However, the first stanza shows that this isn't always the case and that love can make someone anxious and worried.

What do you notice?
The response uses the pronoun 'we'. This is because the response writer is referring to themselves as part of the collective "reader". Not once has the response writer used "we know this because". That is implied information. This personal response is built around textual references and opinions that we can make based off the text. The response writer forms an opinion and backs it up with references from the text.

When forming your response or opinion to the poem, here are some questions to keep in mind.
- how does the poem make me feel?
- are there particular parts of the poem that stand out to me? why?
- what is the poet saying or how is the poet expressing themselves to make me feel this way?
- are there other ways someone might interpret the poem?
- what are the details that might support another interpretation?

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So you have your personal response, but now what? You need to think more in detail about the effect on the reader and what the poet is doing to get this effect. 
Questions to consider:
- is it clear what the poem is about?
- could the poem be about different things? why do you think this?
- are there key lines or phrases that stand out to you?
- are there clues in the title or start/end of the poem?

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Structuring a Comparative Essay
There is no way to effectively write this essay without planning it first. Writing without planning is only setting yourself up for failure. It takes 5 minutes to make a plan. Do it.

There are two common structures for comparing poetry. The first is simple but it doesn't allow for much critical analysis. This is:
- Introduction
- Poem A
- Poem B
- Conclusion
While this structure allows you to speak on both poems separately, it was by comparing poetry on different aspects (theme, language, etc) that shows higher thinking.

This is why I suggest using structure B.
- Introduction
- Poems A + B Themes
- Poems A + B Structure
- Poems A + B Language
- Conclusion
The topics of each paragraph can be changed. For example, you can change out Themes with Context.

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The last thing of note is to remember to see your ideas through. The most common mistake made in your mock exams was that your ideas were there, but they weren't sufficient. Really good ideas were mentioned in passing, as if you weren't sure if they were good enough, but then never mentioned again. Be confident in how you approach the poetry, the language, structure, themes, attitudes, contexts. You've got this!